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T H E S E R V I C E OF 
THE VI SI TING AND 
CONSULTING TEACHER 

BROWN 



THE SERVICE 

OF 

THE VISITING AND 
CONSULTING TEACHER 

BY 

ALLAN P. BROWN, S. B. 

Formerly Principal of the Imperial Valley Union 
High School, Imperial, California, Visiting and Con- 
sulting Teacher, Santa Barbara, California. 




1915 

The Printing Studio ofD. H. Schauer 
San Marcos Building 
Santa Barbara, California 






Copyright 

1915 

By 

Allan P. Brown 

All Rights Reserved 



:^AR -9 (915 

C'C!.A3 96 48 2 



I- 



r 



TO 

The boys and girls who care for 
the best life ; and to those who do 
not now care, in the hope that, some 
day, they may, this little book is 
affectionately dedicated by 

The Author 



The Service of the Visiting and 
Consulting Teacher 

The services of the visiting and 
consulting teacher are these: 

To bring to child life and to youth 
the guiding friendship of a big 
brother or sister, who loves children 
and young people, and men and 
women, — a big brother or sister who 
knows, by actual experience, some- 
thing of the demands of the world's 
everyday life, and who has sought 
to meet these demands with devo- 
tion, ability and training. 

Centuries of civilization have not 
materially changed the instincts of 
human nature, in many respects. 
We still have a longing for what we 
naturally want, and we don't like 



what we don't like, even if we have 
to keep still about it. Then, too, 
human ability is weak, after all. 
"The spirit truly is ready, but the 
flesh is weak." 

Alice wants to get her arithmetic, 
but nature has given her a handicap 
in that particular subject. She is 
good in some other things, but when 
she tries to see why the numerator 
and denominator of a fraction have 
to be treated with perfect fairness, 
her mental machinery stops work- 
ing. And there is some reason for 
the trouble, too, but no one seems 
to have had the time to look after 
the matter. What is the result? 
Alice stumbles along, takes the 
book's word for it, and the teacher's, 
and goes home with the convic- 
tion that something is wrong, she 
doesn't know just what, or why, or 



where. The next day it is some 
other trouble, and the next, another, 
and so on. 

Thus, before very long, it is not 
arithmetic that Alice is studying, a 
good portion of the time, but troubles. 
For, we know that trouble in one 
thing casts its shadow over every- 
thing. This is as true as human 
consciousness is true. If we have 
trouble we may try to hide it from 
others, but we know, only too well, 
that we cannot really deny it to 
ourselves. 

Now, what is the life cost of 
trouble? It is this. First fear, then 
unhappiness, followed by gradual 
discouragement, and the giving up 
of noble ideals. This, in turn, is 
sufficient, in many cases, to change 
the whole life plans of a boy or girl. 
Is there nothing that can be done 



about it? And, if something can be 
don& about it, is it worth while? 
There is much being done about it, 
and the work is considered very- 
well worth while. The universities 
and high schools have their personal 
interviews and conference hours. 
The public grade schools have their 
special study rooms. But no one, 
as yet, would think of taking Alice 
out of her class and sending her to 
the special study room. Because, 
if she were to go, there are Thomas 
and William who ought to go with 
her, and half a dozen others. And 
this is only one school in the city. 

Now comes the visiting and con- 
sulting teacher and sits down with 
Alice, and Thomas and William, 
one at a time, or two or more at a 
time, as may best fit the matter in 
hand, spending five or ten minutes 



with each one. Troubles are cleared 
away for that day, and perhaps 
for the next, and some important 
things are really and truly under- 
stood. Then Alice and Thomas and 
William go back to their rooms, and 
Edith and James and John take 
their places, either singly or to- 
gether. Thus, at the end of an 
hour, the visiting and consulting 
teacher has talked sympathetically, 
helpfully, and professionally, if you 
please, with half a dozen or more 
little men and women. At the end 
of five or six hours, he has helped 
twenty-five or thirty or more, in 
two or more schools. 

Nature is very prompt in her ap- 
preciation of assistance. Before 
many days, or perhaps, almost at 
once, the teachers notice that Alice 
and Thomas and William are show- 



6 

ing a decided improvement in their 
work. As one teacher put it: 

"Thomas and John are doing so 
much better. They seem to have 
more self respect and command of 
themselves. Thomas, particularly, 
is actually doing things. Before 
this I had to just let him go along, 
as best he could, because he could- 
n't really do anything, you know. 
I think it is wonderful that one can 
notice an improvement so soon, 
where you would think it would 
take weeks and weeks." 

Again, in the same school, the 
principal, a careful, conscientious, 
young man, came in one morning, 
and said, earnestly : 

"I want to say that there is very 
marked change in William's work." 

William's case had been partic- 
ularly troublesome to the principal. 



The young man did not know 
whether it was a lack of application 
with the boy or something far more 
serious. A brief investigation" 
showed plenty of trouble, but the evi- 
dence, from day to day, was rather 
conflicting. For instance, in simple 
multiplication, as elsewhere, the 
things that William really knew 
seemed very elusive, so he was given 
a clear case from newsboy's row. If 
one newspaper cost five cents what 
will twenty-five cost? He was 
shown how to write the numbers 
down, how to put the product 
down, how to point off. Having 
been taken over the road once could 
he go over it again, alone ? Oh, no. 
Four times he tried it, with an air 
of easy superiority. He would glad- 
ly have let the matter go. But 
there was someone at his elbow to 



s 

take him back gently and start him 
on the road again. He grew more 
serious. The fifth time he got it, 
and was congratulated by a sincere 
handshake. His dull, yet shrewd- 
looking face lit up with an unusual 
light. It seemed as if the clouds 
began to break away right then. 

But there are many nice, bright 
boys and girls, everywhere, who do 
not have any such trouble as Wil- 
liam had, yet they do not see things 
quite clearly. They greatly appre- 
ciate a little help where it is needed. 
"A word in season, how good it is." 
As a capable, genial, principal said, 
in a large school, where there is a 

marked mixture of races: 

"Togo is a bright, good boy. But 
he needs more help in his English. 
I wish that I could help him." 

A few mornings later the princi- 
pal said happily: 



"I think that I can notice an im- 
provement in Togo already." Then 
he went on to explain that the thir- 
teen-year-old boy from far Japan 
seemed to have found a new inter- 
est and enthusiasm in his school 
life. 

"I would like to send in my Chi- 
nese boy," said a spirited young 
woman. 

Alfred bears a surname of his 
race, with a Christian name com- 
plimentary to the land of his adop- 
tion. He is lithe and alert, but he 
likes to understand things before 
going far with them. 

"What does Mt. Olympus mean?" 
says he, in somewhat abbreviated 
English. "Just who was Zeus?" 
This bears out his teacher's com- 
plaint: "He refuses to pronounce 
a word unless he understands it." 



10 

Would that there were more of his 
kind. 

"I have a girl," said another 
teacher, in another school, "she is 
so far behind. I ought to put her 
back ; but she hates to go back, she 
is so big." 

Eulalia bears the name of a for- 
mer Mexican ruler of international 
repute. She takes her arithmetic 
quickly, leaves her classroom with 
all promptness, and accompanies 
the visiting teacher to the office. 
She sits shyly on the edge of her 
chair, keenly alert for every word 
of instruction. She is easy to 
teach, considering her great needs, 
and the willing, grateful child is so 
anxious to learn. If she but knew 
English as well as she does Spanish, 
how much easier it would be. How- 
ever, she knows English well enough 



11 

to get along with that part very 
well. It is the pure, simple arith- 
metic that is causing the most of 
her trouble. 

Some foundations are very care- 
fully gone over, with the assistance 
of nickels, pennies and dimes. The 
clouds begin to clear away. She is 
told, very definitely, just what to 
do for the next time — and what not 
to do. She is shown just how to do 
it, and is given a complete model, 
which she is to look at only when 
necessary. 

All of this requires more than ten 
minutes. But it is the first inter- 
view, and much has been done that 
will not have to be done over again, 
with a girl like Eulalia. She goes 
back to her classroom with a new 
hope. Eulalia "is on the road to 
recovery," as her next interview 
shows, two days later. 



12 

Some emphasis is laid on this 
case, because Eulalia is the "good 
child," who wants to do her best in 
her troubles. And was it not of 
this spirit, in the world's good 
children, big or little, that the 
Master really spoke, when he said, 
"of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." One recalls the noble 
words of England's great and good 
Queen Victoria, when she was a 
young girl : "I may not be able to 
be great but I want to be good." 

There are thousands of young 
people in the world who "want to 
be good," who want to do the best 
they can, in their studies, and in 
the far greater school of life. But, 
now and then, their problems and 
troubles seem, at the time, beyond 
their comprehension, and they real- 
ise keenly that world-old truth, 



13 

"how shall a man know lest he be 
taught r 

It does not take a good guide long 
to tell you which turn in the road 
to take, which trail on the moun- 
tain. It is true you might find out 
for yourself, in time — but, at what 
a cost — at this cost, too frequently, 
that you do not arrive where you 
should have arrived, either that 
day or any other day. 

There was once a great and good 
man, whose inspired influence con- 
tinues strong in the world today, 
who said that the true teacher 
should be "gentle unto all men, apt 
to teach, patient, in meekness in- 
structing those that oppose them- 
selves." 

There are thousands of boys and 
girls today who do not want to go 
to school, who do not want to take 



14 

the counsel of their parents and 
teachers ; but experience has taught 
fathers and mothers and teachers 
that so many of these thousands of 
boys and girls regret their folly, 
bitterly, when it is too late. What 
would fathers and mothers not give 
if they could only reach the hearts 
of their boys and girls, and lead 
them to "recover themselves out of 
the" error of their way, before it 
is too late. 

The visiting and consulting teach- 
er can sit down alone with William 
or Alice, and talk over with them, 
kindly but seriously, lifers great 
problems that are pressing for solu- 
tion. William and Alice will have 
to solve their own life problems, but 
a little guidance, at a critical mo- 
ment, at an important turn in the 
road, may mean everything. For, 



15 

the visiting and consulting teacher 
visits the home as well as the class 
room. He knows what the class 
teacher is not at all likely to know. 
Fathers and mothers, brothers and 
sisters, out of the over-flowing 
burden of their hearts, give him 
sacred confidences, as they do to the 
minister and the physician. And 
these confidences he holds in sacred 
trust for the guiding and saving of 
human life unto its highest ends. 

Thus, for the thousands of boys 
and girls and young people, who 
"want to be good," and who want 
to know "the truth," the visiting and 
consulting teacher, the good big 
brother and sister, offers his or her 
love and life service. Yet, not only 
for these, but for those less fortunate 
ones, who do not "want to be good," 
who do not want to know "the 



16 

truth," and who "oppose them- 
selves," as yet, in their own best 
lives; but who, "peradventure," 
may be led "to the acknowledging 
of the truth" and to "recover them- 
selves," before it is too late. 




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